The Scars of Life

Looking at my wife post surgery, on her way to another surgery, is a sight to see.   Her scars are very visible and deep.  Undergoing a bilateral mastectomy four weeks ago, she is still in quite a bit of discomfort.  As she slowly got dressed to come back for another procedure prior to beginning chemotherapy next month, her scars made me think of life and how life's hammer just pounds on us every day.  I'm not saying that life is terrible, but living this life is not easy-- regardless of how you spin it.  Sickness, death, pain and suffering are very much a part of the human experience.  Many use these occurrences to blame God for everything, to justify their unbelief and to dispute his goodness.  I beg to differ!  The fact that we survive these sometimes horrific things tells me that God is good and merciful!

Some of us have scars that are visible signs of the battles that we've been in with life.  Surgeries to remove cancers, fix broken bones, replace hips and knees, repair damage caused by accidents and the like reveal some of the things that people have been through.  Some of us, however, have internal scars of abuse, pain, depression, addiction and other things that are not outwardly visible but they still exist.

Knowing that life is painful, Jesus made no bones about the fact that in this world we would have trouble (John 16:33).  But Jesus also gave us the reassurance that He has overcome the world and therefore we can be joyful and hopeful in life's most painful moments.  The apostle Paul says of his Christian ministry (2 Cor 4:8,9) and the persecution that he was facing that those that carried the gospel were hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted and cast down.  Although this was a description of his ministry, it still applies to the everyday Christian! 

Living the Christian life is not an easy road by any stretch of the imagination.  There are demonic forces (Ephesians 6:12) that attack us on every side, there are trials that come in life and there is persecution from those that live lives totally antithetical to the Christian worldview.  We are hard pressed on every side.    The pressures of the world do their best to take us out.  We too are perplexed when we do not have the answer to the sufferings that we encounter.  We too are persecuted when we name the name of Christ.  We too are cast down by the blows dealt to us by life and those that want to destroy us.  We too share in these same sufferings, albeit to different extents, every day.  We too are jars of clay, fragile but not easily broken.  We all bear the scars of life upon our bodies, inside and out.

But thanks be to God that there is a flipside to each and every one of the actions mentioned in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9.  Yes we are hard pressed, BUT we are not crushed!  We might be fragile but because of the power of God, the Holy Ghost living inside of us, we are not crushed!  The pressure from the outside will never be greater that the ONE on the inside of us that is pushing back against it (1 John 4:4)!  The perplexities of life will never lead us to despair!  Although we do not know the answers, we know the ONE who has all of the answers!    Yes we are persecuted because of the way we live and what we believe, but the ONE that we live for says "lo, I will be with you, even to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:20)."  When we are cast down, physically or spiritually we are not destroyed, our clay pot is never dashed to pieces because the ONE that lives in us holds all things together by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3)!

If you read these scriptures, notice that there are two words there in each line that separate the negative action from the positive result.  Those two words are BUT and NOT!  I thank God for the BUT NOTS in life!  We bear the scars of life BUT NOT the negative results that were intended by some of them!  We have pain BUT we are NOT destroyed because of it.  The words BUT NOT are the ones that draw us closer to God and help us to understand His sovereignty, His grace, His mercy and His love!  Anyone reading this has had some BUT NOT moments and if you keep living, you will have even more BUT NOT moments.

Yes, life is hard, BUT NOT impossible.  In the words of Pam Thum, "Life is Hard BUT God is Good".  Those of us that are battle scarred know this to be a fact.  Those of us that been through tribulation and have proven character (Romans 5:3) and proven faith (1 Peter 1:7) understand that God causes all things to work together for good of those that love Him and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).  Let your scars be your testimony that God has not forsaken you but he has healed you.  Scars are generally left behind after healing has taken place.  Let your life and your works be the evidence that God is good.  God bless you.